18th February

Rain! About 3pm it came down, no gentle start, one minute it was sunshine and warm, the next the road was covered in rivulets, the roof sounded like a demented drummer, and it turned into a giant outdoor sauna, with a waterfall

It’s still raining 3 hours later, the roadside drains are flowing well, the clay road to my place is slippery, and it’s still about 28*C. The rain is warm enough to be out in without feeling cold, slight problem if you wear glasses, mine have been fogged up for the last couple of hours.

We’re trying another approach to the problem with the swimming hole being washed out each time the river floods. The first lot of tyres, that are now between the Gardens and the coastline, were just placed and hopefully the concrete and weight would lock them in place. The river scours out the bank there, it’s trying to turn a right angle where it hits the bank. This time, we’ve acquired some reinforcing bar somehow, in short 1m sections, and we are pinning each layer of tyres through the lower set, and using the stub to place the next layer, and pinning that again. And wiring each layer to the pin.

It’s been 4 years since it was first done, and the 5th time we have done this, including the dam. I must admit, working with the people here is a lot better than anywhere I have worked so far. If it had been some other places, getting people to rebuild constantly would have caused **words** to be said. Here? It’s just “no wariwari, hem flood hem bugarup all same taem”

Had a guy come round last night as I was getting out of the work truck, started talking, telling me about his family south of Honiara, cut off till the bridges are rebuilt, how he is all worried about them etc, and he was working all day in Honiara worrying about them, and could I help him?

Told him not my concern, he should go to the Flood Relief Centre in town, then he wanted me to buy some baskets he would make for me if I gave him some money now, when I said, “mi no seleni, mi VSA worker, no seleni nomoa” he had a look around the outside of the house, and asked if I was worried about having no security. I pointed to the next house down, told him “dat fala house, RAMSI, hem fala house there, hem RAMSI” He left rather quickly then.

Seleni is Toktok for money, no seleni nomoa, no money

RAMSI is the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, it’s a combination of Police from New Zealand and Australia, set in place after the civil war on Guadacanal. You do not mess with them. Nice people, I’m pleased they’re on my side.

My gas stove is so well behaved tonight, funny how little things give you such joy at times.
Walked the river track during the rain. It’s amazing how quick the river rises, the catchment area is huge behind the Gardens, and it all feeds into the stream through the gardens. It rose 1.5m in the 45 minutes I was walking, just beneath the lower bridge when I got back.

I’ve got about 25% of the trees in the gardens identified now, only 200 or so to go. The breadfruit trees gave me problems, the leaf variation between trees is wider than any of my reference books mention, some look like acanthus mollis , some like philodendron, they are all self seeded, so the variation between varieties here makes it hard to pick good fruiting trees. They’ll be in fruit later in the year when the dry season starts, so I’ll have another try at the specific variety then, or at least which ones to take cuttings from. Thanks to Peter back in Tokoroa for the help.

Pic for today is the bridge and orchid house